Diskarte beyond the diploma

By Herman M. Lagon

The first lesson about diskarte rarely comes from a classroom. It arrives quietly, often early, sometimes uninvited. It is learned while watching a parent stretch a week’s budget across 10 days, or while figuring out how to get to school when the last jeepney has already left. For many of us, diskarte lives in everyday choices, not in slogans. It’s shaped by lack and uncertainty, by the need to move forward anyway. Where poverty is real, diskarte means surviving without losing one’s dignity.

To call diskarte mere hustle understates its depth. It’s resourcefulness in real time, shaped by experience and need, especially when systems fall short. The sari-sari owner who knows the neighborhood by feel, the teacher salvaging lessons after floods, or the seller who shifted online during lockdowns are not being praised — they’re surviving. They are practical thinkers responding to limits. What distinguishes diskarte from improvisation is intent. It is not random. It is a way of reading the room, weighing risks, and acting with what is available, here and now.

This is why the old debate between diploma and diskarte often misses the point. A diploma carries value. It signals credibility, persistence, and a capacity to complete structured work. It opens doors that should not be forced open. Professions like medicine, engineering and law need formal training — and that will not change. But a diploma does not teach how to handle unstable income, slow systems or failed plans. Diskarte steps in there. It is learning shaped by experience, not certificates. The more honest view is to value both, because each covers what the other cannot.

Look at the OFW finding their footing in a new country. Papers matter, but in the first months, adjustment matters more — learning the system, sending money home on time, earning trust one shift at a time. Or look at the small vendor who begins with borrowed capital and a borrowed corner of the street. Registration can come later; feeding the family cannot wait.

The same quiet diskarte shows up in clinics and hospitals. A nurse learns how to stretch limited supplies through a long shift, keeping care humane despite shortages. A doctor navigates crowded wards, balancing protocols with compassion when time and resources run thin.

It appears as well in public service, at its best. A mayor reworks a budget midyear to keep health centers open after a storm. A legislator listens more than speaks, finding practical compromises so aid reaches communities without delay. These are not shortcuts or clever tricks. They are hard, responsible choices made under pressure — decisions where the consequences are carried by real people, long after the meetings end.

At heart, diskarte relies on skills we already know: flexibility, creativity and emotional discipline. It is not breaking rules, but knowing which rules to hold on to when life becomes tight. This is why people described as ma-diskarte are often comfortable with ambiguity. They do not need perfect clarity to begin. They test, adjust and continue. In environments marked by inequality and weak institutional support, this ability becomes a form of quiet competence. It is not flashy. It is effective.

Yet it is also true that diskarte has limits, and pretending otherwise does a disservice to those who carry it most heavily. When diskarte becomes an expectation rather than a response, it can slide into burden. Advising people to “find a way” in broken systems risks normalizing what should not be normal. A commuter waking up before dawn to survive a failing transport system is not heroic. A family choosing between food and data is not resilient by choice. Diskarte can help people endure, but it cannot replace functioning institutions, fair wages or reliable public services. Treating it as a cure-all allows structural problems to persist quietly.

This tension explains why some critiques describe diskarte as a suspension of disbelief, a collective agreement to accept sharp edges as normal. Inflation turns PHP 500 into a brief visit to the grocery aisle, and the response offered is often another list of tipid tricks. Transportation fails, and the advice is to wake earlier. Work becomes more precarious, and the solution offered is more hustle. In these moments, diskarte shifts from tool to narrative, from agency to expectation. The risk is not diskarte itself, but using it to justify the absence of real support and care.

Education sits in the middle of this reality. For learners and teachers, school is hope mixed with pressure. A diploma still signals responsibility. But classrooms are never separate from life. Teachers wear many hats. Students work to survive. Learning continues despite brownouts, floods and weak internet. Here, diskarte becomes part of teaching — quietly shaping lessons, assessments and ways of staying enrolled. Education works not by pretending life is easy, but by adjusting to it.

Public talk that treats diplomas and diskarte as rivals misses the point. Many leaders succeeded through winding paths and stress the value of mentors and purpose. Finishing a degree matters because it teaches follow-through. Diskartematters because it gives education traction in the real world. When purpose is clear, both become tools rather than trophies.

There are everyday scenes that make this balance visible. A jeepney driver who learned basic accounting through experience later attends a short course to formalize the business. A former miner becomes a roadside coffee seller, then registers properly when stability allows. A market vendor reinvests by noticing what others discard and turning it into income. These are not overnight transformations. They are patient sequences of judgment, risk, learning and adjustment. They show diskarte not as rebellion against systems, but as navigation within imperfect ones.

The more generous reading of diskarte treats it as everyday creativity under constraint, evaluated by usefulness rather than polish. It blends talion (intelligence), pamamaraan (principled approach), and pagkamalikhain (creativity) into action. Diskarte asks what matters most: will this work for now, for us, under these limits? When guided by values and care for the future, it becomes more than getting by. It becomes a way of moving forward without leaving others behind.

Ultimately, diskarte is not about glorifying struggle. It is about honoring quiet intelligence under pressure. A diploma opens doors. Diskarte helps people walk through them when the way is uncertain. Filipinos have long practiced both, often without thinking to name it.

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Doc H fondly describes himself as a “student of and for life” who, like many others, aspires to a life-giving and purpose-driven world grounded in social justice and the pursuit of happiness. His views do not necessarily reflect those of the institutions he is employed by or connected with.